About Me

Jim is the author of eight novels, three memoirs and four business books. He made a covered wagon and horseback trip across Texas to retrace the journey his ancestors had made two generations earlier and wrote Biscuits Across the Brazos to chronicle the trip. He traveled the team roping circuit as an amateur and worked roundups on big ranches. Working beside real cowboys sent him back to writing. Using lessons he had learned from more than 10,000 client interviews over thirty years and memories from his rural Texas roots, Jim published five novels in his Follow the Rivers series and three in the Tee Jessup/Riverby series. He has also published three memoirs and story collections.He has been a Writers Digest International Book Contest Finalist.

Friday, December 27, 2013

We have all heard Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing
the same thing over and over expecting to get different results. As we usher in
a new year, most of us ponder the year just passed and consider what we might
do to make next year better. In my case, 2013 set a pretty low bar.

On the other hand, Jan and I did get a lot accomplished in
2013—things that had been put off for many years because they were stressful
and we dreaded them. As Brian Tracy says, “We ate the frog” this year, tackling
home repairs, etc… The many things that went wrong are probably not worth
mentioning.

If you follow my posts, you know that I believe life is
lived forward, but understood backward. Looking back, I have to admit that most
of what I did in terms of promoting my books last year did not work. I suppose
I could put a positive spin on it and say that the methods just haven’t had
time, but my instincts tell me that what I have been doing is not likely to
ever work for me.

I have attended many seminars and read many books on the
subject, but have not seen broad-based empirical evidence that social media is
efficient for promoting (selling) the type of books I write. Many (make that
most) strongly disagree with me and I certainly want to hear more arguments to
the contrary. But don’t bring me any more stories of outliers and flukes. I
have heard plenty of those. I want the same sort of statistics and proven
results that any company would use for launching or scrapping a product,
service, or marketing campaign.

I post a lot of book reviews to Amazon and Goodreads. I do
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, and many others. None very well,
however, because I simply don’t see that as the highest and best use of my
time. I think I understand why others do. But one thing seems sure—one must
seriously post to and read these sites to make them work. You can’t do it
halfway. Doing it right takes up a tremendous amount of time—time that I feel would
be better spent writing books that reflect my best efforts.

I enjoy writing blog posts, but I don’t enjoy posting them
to all of the social media sites. I like writing books more than Tweeting or
Pinning. And I like writing and reading print books more than e-books and
serial books. Now there are studies that show comprehension rates for
reading a print book is 30% higher than reading from a screen.

I sincerely hope
that the day of the print book is not gone. Woe to good books if it is. Will “curling
up with a good book” really be replaced with “curling up with a battery
operated gadget”? Will Tweeting ultimately destroy spelling and grammar? Will the style of blog posts become the style of good books?

I like taking the time to structure a novel, to edit and
revise it until I think it is a good as I can make it before showing it to
others. I feel the need to let it simmer in my mind and on the page before I
release it. I feel an obligation to myself and my loyal readers to do those
things.

Lest I sound elitist or grandiose, I am well aware of my limitations
and my low position as an unknown writer. That’s probably one of the reasons
writing requires so much concentration for me. With all that, errors are still
missed. And those errors will always be there.

I don’t write thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, suspense,
crime, romance or any of the genres that usually make up the bestseller lists. Home Light
Burning would fit on historical fiction shelves, but bookstores don’t have
a section for my other novels.

My protagonists are not cops, private detectives, doctors or
lawyers (not so far, anyway). There are no superheroes in my books, only
ordinary people handling extraordinary as well as normal problems many of us
face. I learn from how my characters deal with these problems and hope my
readers do the same. Elmer Kelton once said something like this, “Most Western
heroes are six-two and fearless. My heroes are five-nine and afraid.”

So far, all of my novels have been based on real events and
people. Most have a central theme, a symbol or two and lots of metaphors. I try
to put in subtle, positive messages.

Many say that all that is required for high book sales is to
write a good book. Nonsense. Some of the best books I have ever read failed to
sell well and many of the worst were best-sellers. Best- sellers are usually made by an organized
and efficient marketing campaign, the kind that can usually only be
accomplished by a large publisher. Other best-sellers have almost always
benefited from some type of unusual event or events.

I have found that I can only write the type of book I like
to read. And yes, I read many writers who do it better. Thanks to them for
setting the bar high so I have something to try and reach.

My readers have taught me so much. They are an eclectic
bunch, but have a lot in common. They like stories; they don’t like to be
manipulated with artificial hooks or too many flashbacks; they want almost no
flash-forwards; they want characters and events to be believable (that’s why I
base my books on reality); they don’t like to “work” to read a book and don’t
appreciate authors who sacrifice readability on the altar of literary style.

They like antagonists they can root against, but the bad guy
doesn’t have to reach the level of Hannibal Lecter. And they want at least one
character they can like and identify with—someone they can pull for.

I am grateful for all my readers, and yes, I wish there were
more of them.

I have my next novel almost ready for a team of early readers. I
continue to believe that one should pay attention to the little things in life,
because we may later learn that they are the big things. Stories are little
things that I consider really big things. I plan to continue telling them—even
if they are read only by a small but loyal audience.

Unless I am convinced
otherwise, I plan on changing things in 2014. If not, I would have to plead
insanity. I am just not sure what those changes should be. Maybe you could give
me some ideas.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Two days before Thanksgiving, I was traveling down a
state highway and saw a car in an intersection ahead. As I drew within thirty or so
yards, the car entered the left lane in front of me. I honked and moved right.
When I saw that he might not stop, I laid down on the horn and the brakes, but it
was too late. He “t-boned” me and sent my car careening sideways down the
highway, finally coming to a stop facing the wrong direction. I looked out and
saw pieces of my pickup in the road.

I sat there a few seconds to see if I had gone to
heaven or was still alive. There must be a brief time when we are protected
somehow, seconds when our minds block things out. Because when I looked out the
window, a wrecker was already parked across the road and sirens were blaring.

Then I saw the car that had hit me. Smoke boiled and
liquids poured out of the little convertible. I thought the “jaws of life”
would be needed to extract the driver and any passengers from this metal
pancake. Had I just been involved in an accident that had taken a life?

I pushed open my broken door, stepped out and, heart
racing, started toward the car. Seconds later, the driver kicked open his door
and stepped out unhurt.

In the old days, after I pinched myself to see if I
was alive and asked if the other driver was alive, I would have probably
uttered a string of expletives at the situation, maybe even at the other
driver.“Are you drunk or just stupid? Where
did you learn to drive? Look what you did to my truck,” might have been some milder
exclamations.

This time, I think I only uttered a single expletive,
and that was to myself. When I met the other driver between his car and mine, I
just said “Are you okay?” He asked the same of me. Now, I’m not going to tell
you that I stepped out of my car with a feeling of gratitude in my heart. I
didn’t say, “Thank you Lord, for sparing us both” until a few hours later.

I’m also not going to claim that I felt great
sympathy and goodwill for the fellow whose mind temporarily deserted him for
parts unknown, allowing him to pull out on a state highway without looking. We
could have both been killed or badly injured (I think the step rail on my
pickup kept that from happening). But I was glad he was alive and told him so
(I learned that he is the father of three school age children). He admitted
fault and we shook hands.

I have had a few near misses in the past, been run
into at stop signs twice, but I have never had a wreck that could easily have
killed me or someone else. So it seems I should learn something from the
experience.

I write a lot about coincidences, luck, blessings,
and Godwinks, but usually to tie positive events together. I think I understand
why, when good things happen. But I can’t explain those moments in time when
two forces collide, often tragically. Who knows why two fathers hit a collision
course that morning? I don’t have space to tell you the unusual circumstances
that put me in that particular spot at that exact moment. Suffice it to say
that it was a highly unlikely series of events that put me there. Also, three
seconds sooner or later for either of us, and we would have avoided the collision.

So what did it teach me? The old Jim would have only
focused on the terrible and expensive event, how my pickup will never be the
same, how it was sure to upset my life for weeks, maybe months to come, and how
it ruined both Thanksgiving and Christmas. But the new Jim asked questions
like:

Was this father of three headed for death by an
eighteen wheeler later in the day or the next? Did this wreck save him from a
fatal encounter with a truck that might have hit him before I did? Was there a safety
flaw in his vehicle that could have taken the lives of his entire family later?

We’ll never know the answers to those questions, of
course, but I’m glad they come to mind.

I dreamed about the wreck for several nights,
replaying the scene and wondering what I might have done to avoid the
collision. No answers came.

The event told me more about the person I want to
become. That person is one who would have stepped out of the car with not just
concern, but forgiveness for the driver who had almost killed me, recognizing
that our roles might have been reversed. The person I want to be would send up
an immediate prayer of gratitude. I will eventually get there.

Questions come to mind when one is talking about
fate, predestination, coincidences, luck or Godwinks. What if someone had been
killed? What happens when the cosmic forces collide and terrible things happen
to innocent and good people? Why do bad people sometimes succeed while some
good people never realize their dreams? Using logic and normal cognitive
thinking to explain these things can sometimes get in the way of opening
ourselves up to faith and timeless truths.

So did the wreck ruin my Thanksgiving and put a
damper on my Christmas spirit? I should mention that my pickup is still in the
shop awaiting repairs, and that I am having to spend countless hours dealing
with insurance claims and the repair itself. And I am doing it all without my
truck.

As for Thanksgiving, it went pretty well. But when
we had possibly the worst ice storm ever about ten days later, I started to
feel sorry for myself again. Like many others, we lost power for three days,
telephone service for two. We lost all our refrigerated food. I had to
literally saw my way out of our driveway the next morning. Our place looks like
a tornado hit it, with more than fifty large tree limbs on the ground and
probably a hundred smaller ones. But a tornado did not hit. We have a wood
stove and I have a lot of dry wood. I still need my truck and I don’t like
dealing with insurance claims, but family is coming for Christmas and I promise
not to let these things spoil our celebration.

Saturday, November 30, 2013

At the Ambassador Hotel
in Amarillo, I signed up for a pre-conference workshop for beginning
writers.I checked into my room and barely
made it down in time for the first session. The instructors
treated us not like beginning writers, but like small children. I was discouraged
a little as I heard college professors rattle off rules I had already broken. My
left brain that likes to abide by rules battled with my right brain that likes
to break them.

The CEO of Hastings bookstores
talked at a banquet that night. I learned a few things.

On Saturday, my first
sessions were almost as bad as the pre-conference, but I did get to spend an
hour and a half in an informal conversation with Elmer Kelton and three
other writers. Kelton was probably the best living author of westerns at the
time, a consummate gentleman who imparted more information in that time than I
had received in all my previous sessions combined.

He told us how he corrected and edited each page before going to the next one. It
was not a method I adopted, but he was clear that it was not a rule, just a
preference for him. My favorite story was
of his by-pass surgery.As he came back
from anesthesia, he hallucinated and imagined himself to be Huey Callaway, one
of the characters in The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country who was hurt while riding a bronc.He said he was pretty sure the pain he was
experiencing was from a bronc, not surgery.

Elmer Kelton and I crossed paths a few more times
before he passed away. One of the nicest people I have ever met. Years later,
Sam Brown told me that Kelton agreed to read his first book and advised him on
getting published.I know he did the
same for many authors.

Naturally, I was
flattered, when seven years later, this review by Dr. Stephen Turner appeared. ''Jim
Ainsworth is a master story teller. He is cut from the 'old rock,' the stone of
Kelton and Dobie. He is able to weave a story that can transport the reader to
a different time and place. Home Light Burningis a well written
page-turner with crisp prose and dialogue that flows like a spring from a
limestone bluff.'' --Plainview Daily Herald, December 24, 2009.

Then later, George Aubrey penned this review on Amazon for
Go Down Looking. "This is one of the best
pieces of fiction since Elmer Kelton died.

Okay, I don’t claim to be in the same class as Kelton, but
the comparisons are nice.

Even if the first day had been a
disaster, I knew I would always cherish that short time with Kelton, even if I
never wrote another word. But I still was disappointed that I was not taking
something more concrete away from the conference. I found it in the last two
sessions.

Jane Kirkpatrick ,
author of several books, was down to earth, humorous and an all-around excellent
speaker. My ears perked up when she said she had grown up on a dairy farm in
Wisconsin and now lived in a remote part of Oregon called Starvation Point. What was she doing in Amarillo?

In the final
session, I met Jan Epton-Seale from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Like
Kirkpatrick, she had traveled far to speak in Amarillo. She spoke about writing
memoirs and creative writing. She had also written several volumes of poetry,
and also published both fiction and non-fiction. She was later named Texas Poet
Laureate in 2012.But she made a big
mistake when she hinted that she also did professional editing.

I approached her at
the end of the seminar and asked if she would read my manuscript. She asked how
long it was and I said about 425 pages. She frowned at the length but still
quoted a price. I went to my car to retrieve the nice manuscript box I had put
the draft of Rivers Flow in. When she
opened the box, she frowned again. “This is single spaced.”

“I double spaced it
when I wrote it, but changed it to single so it would fit in the box.” She
smiled and said the price would be a little higher. To her credit, she did not
double the fee.

I left the seminar
feeling pretty good and had a relaxing trip home. Something had been
accomplished, maybe something substantial. I had an experience working roundup
and branding on a huge Texas ranch, reconnected to a friend from long ago,
visited my old home place and had hired an accomplished, unbiased author to
read and critique my first novel.

I mentally charged my
batteries all the way home, giving myself pep talks. When I arrived home by one
in the morning, I was charged. Jan and I talked till three.

I didn’t hear from Jan Epton-Seale for several weeks. She
called the house on a Sunday afternoon and my Jan answered. I was team-roping
that day, so I will probably never know exactly what Jan said to Jan. I am sure
it was more critical than my wife said. However, when I received her written
critique and marked-up manuscript the next week, the first sentence began . . . First,
you can write. Excellent criticism and suggestions followed, but that first
sentence was what I needed. Jan Epton-Seale, South Texas editor for Texas Books in Review, knew that. Someday,
I’ll write about a surprise meeting with her eleven years later in a Highland
Park mansion.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

I left the Quien
Sabe about mid-afternoon and headed south toward my high school stomping
grounds, but could not pass Boys Ranch and old Tascosa without stopping. I
toured the Tascosa courthouse donated by Julian Bivins.Tascosa is an aberration of Otascoso (means
boggy–for a nearby creek). Western legends abound here and the town has been featured in many books and movies.

Bivins also donated
land to form Boys Ranch. Cal Farley and his wife then established a home for
wayward boys and orphans. They ran the place for many years and are buried in
front.Cal was a semi-pro baseball
player and a professional wrestler before he came to Amarillo to open a tire
shop. Mr. and Mrs. Farley were there when I played high school sports there many
years ago.

I left the town and
the homes where boys stay with foster parents and drove up to Old Tascosa Boot Hill.
It was serene to sit on top of the hill with so much history laid out before me.
I always feel a deep connection to the place–as if I have lived there in
another life.

I drove south to
Adrian and roamed around the town full of high school memories. Route 66, what
Steinbeck called the Mother Road, ran straight through the town when I attended
school there as a boy. The Mother Road was lined with service stations and
cafes, a grain elevator and one of the best general, hardware, mercantile and
clothing stores I have ever seen. It was two-story and had once been the Giles
hotel. But traffic has been rerouted to Interstate 40 and it bypasses the tiny
town.

Adrian has almost
become a ghost town, but my old school was still there. I drove across the
cattle guard and onto the Matador Ranch. I drove out to find the old abandoned
corral that used to be the southern loading pen when this land was part of the
XIT. The ranch is said to have done spring works here, then shipping in the
fall. The Matador reached all the way to South Dakota. Not connected, of
course.

From Rivers
Ebb: Something about the place
stirred him. Maybe his great-grandfather or even his grandfather had worked
cattle here. Maybe he had been a ranch cowboy in another life.

I drove back to
Adrian and rode around reading caution signs that had been painted with all
sorts of weird proclamations that I can’t recall. It looked like an artists’
colony of sorts. I stopped in at Mid-Point Café (Adrian is the halfway
point between Chicago and Los Angeles (1139 miles). Inside, I found copies of Sam Brown’s
(the high school friend who became a cowboy poet and author) books and I learned
that the post office had cancelled a commemorative stamp with Sam’s image a few
months earlier.

As I headed out toward
our old home place, I saw the Bent Door Café and stopped to look through its abandoned
windows. What a waste of a unique old building with bent doors and windows. Looking
at the booth where I sat so many times inspired me somehow. I wanted to take a
few notes. I had left this country unwillingly, my cowboy dreams abandoned.
Now, I had come back with dreams of becoming a writer.Suddenly tired, I realized I wanted to stay
in Adrian a while longer.

The Fabulous Forty
motel seemed my only choice. The old woman who had me sign the register was
really gruff and unwelcoming. The room was clean enough, but austere. I pulled a
metal chair outside, leaned against the building and listened to traffic going
by on I-40.Still inspired, I wrote
about my time on the Quien Sabe and the visit with Calvin on a tablet.

I had brought along
a copy of Hold
Autumn in Your Hand, a book Dr. Fred Tarpley had suggested was similar to
my manuscript. I finished it before bedtime.

On Fri. Morning, I put
a copy of Biscuits
Across the Brazoson the table beside Sam Brown’s books in the Midpoint Cafe and drove
out toward our old house and farm. We leased the place back then and cousin
Arliss farmed it for another forty years after we left. But Arliss had died the previous
Christmas and the place seemed doubly sad. His old farm truck was in the shop
garage with a lot more dings and dents.The
shop building seemed in better shape than when we left, but the house we had lived in was
falling down.

I shoved open the
back door and walked in. The place was hardly recognizable because it had been
used as storage for farm castoffs. I could see through the ceiling, the roof
and holes in the sides. The place was falling in. I worried a little about
rattlers because Arliss said they liked the place.

I spooked a little
when a white owl fluttered its feathers and flew out through a hole in the side
wall. I have returned to this old place about three times in forty years, and a
white owl has flown each time. I wondered if it was a sign I am not perceptive
enough to decipher.

I was dressed for
conference registration later in the day, so I decided not to climb over the
junk blocking the doorways. I stood still for a while, trying to reconnect to
the three people who had lived here for only a brief period in our lives. I
always felt the presence of my parents here, though we spent most of our lives
five hundred miles southeast. Maybe it’s because it was just the three of us
then, alone in new country. Looking back, I now realize how frightened my
parents must have been in this unfamiliar life. I grew to love it, but they
never did.